YouthMed APS

Nowadays, we are faced with a globalized and interconnected society in constant change, which requires a continuous improvement of our learning capacity. At the same time, we are confronting an alarming climate crisis, a loss of the values that make us human, work-related pressures on young people who are often disconnected from institutions, a growing brain drain, and a dropout rate that cannot be underestimated. In this context, with the Mediterranean at our heart, YouthMED APS, a non-profit youth organization founded in 2013 and based in Lecce, is committed to inspiring people in its community to discover and develop their natural potential through challenging and educational experiences, with the goal of creating a more resilient, empathetic, and supportive world. Our methodology is based on facilitating experiences that stimulate and promote the integral development of people. YouthMED is made up of a team of education professionals, but also of experts from other fields such as economics, art, and associations, all engaged in a continuous learning process aimed at offering quality education through experiential learning in outdoor activities. Our main priority is to facilitate learning experiences in a safe space. At YouthMED, we focus on youth participation, non-formal education, international mobility, and the empowerment of disadvantaged young people, particularly those with fewer opportunities, using non-formal approaches such as hip-hop/trap music, martial arts like kickboxing and wing chun, experiential learning, and the Theatre of the Oppressed. We build bridges between marginalized communities, academia, entrepreneurship, and politics, ensuring that young people’s voices are heard in all decision-making processes, while actively fighting social exclusion and disengagement through cultural, artistic, and sports initiatives, strengthening Mediterranean culture as a tool for dialogue and intercultural cooperation. As members of the National Youth Council (CNG) and Youth Without Borders (GIOSEF), we play a key role in shaping youth policies at both national and European levels. For this reason, we propose three lines of action, working with different groups to promote social transformation and innovation in the educational processes of our community. EU Projects: Through the Erasmus+ program and the European Solidarity Corps, we create opportunities for international mobility and training for the young people of our community. Acting both as a sending and hosting organization, we involve local youth, with particular attention to those from the working-class neighborhood “164” and the “non-place” Casa Comune in Via Don Bosco, in the city of Lecce. We place special emphasis on engaging young people from complex social contexts, with cultural barriers and limited educational, economic, and social opportunities. Experiential Training Courses: We know that learning acquired through meaningful experiences shapes the person. Through these courses, we want to give young people the opportunity to touch, feel, and live the values and lessons that the Mediterranean, as a crossroads of histories and cultures, offers. These are short- and long-term experiential processes in which participants, through targeted non-formal activities, engage in holistic learning, becoming protagonists of their own journey. Learning Spaces: We see learning as a vital lifelong process, a driving force of societal change. We believe in facilitators, teachers, educators, and trainers as leaders of social transformation. Our learning spaces are opportunities to generate, share, and transmit knowledge and experiences in an intergenerational and horizontal way. We walk towards educational transformation, aware of the need for continuous improvement, and for this reason we collaborate with the best, using our differences as a resource to enrich processes and build the future we dream of.